Words of Gratitude

At a storytelling conference, my friend told the tale of trying to write a thank-you note as a child for an unexciting holiday gift: socks. It’s hard to feel gratitude when it’s obligatory. It can be more fun to ignite thankfulness by spontaneously thinking of people in our lives who help us in ways we might not usually honor. For example, the school gives little gifts to our delivery people every year.

At this time of year, I’d like to share my gratitude for people who do things we couldn’t live without, often behind the scenes in our community. Overflowing thanks to:

• Katie and Sherrie, our receptionists, for all the love and comfort and band-aids they supply for scraped knees

• Emily, our incredibly accomplished HR coordinator, for being a guardian angel to all our employees

• Kim, our medical records coordinator, for meticulously tracking all our children’s prescriptions and medical alerts

• Ivy A., for carefully and compassionately answering parents’ questions about their billing

• Chris and Jenna, for setting up interviews for new preschool and elementary students

• Court, our maintenance supervisor, for taking care of endless tasks, including building beautiful steps behind Room 5 this year, installing new drinking fountains, and unclogging so many drains

• Lara, artist and elementary art teacher extraordinaire, for awakening children’s creativity and helping us appreciate the uniqueness of their renderings

• Laura W., our gifted chorus coordinator, for kindling the love of music and fulfillment of singing together in our children’s chorus

• Mari, our knowledgeable elementary librarian, for captivating children of every age by reading aloud to them every day and providing a magical place to curl up with books at lunchtime

• Catherine, our elementary P.E. teacher, and Rosangela, our creative movement specialist, for showing children that using our bodies and playing games are a lifelong source of joy and good health

• Adrienne, our former garden teacher, for over a decade of fostering exciting outdoor learning, and to Jehlen for stepping so graciously into that role

• Sue, our highly-skilled event coordinator and beautification specialist, for creating the amazing costumes for our plays, decorating for our events, and cooking lunch (after setting a beautiful table) for our co-principals’ lunches

• Michal and Starr, for maintaining and expanding our Preschool Resource Center, organizing and caring for so many exciting themes and materials, and Kathleen Paris for coordinating substitute teachers for preschool and helping with our Core Experience curriculum

• Scott, our communications coordinator, for creating Wednesday Messages every week and ordering supplies for the school

• [Editor’s addition:  Susie Kohl, for sharing her vast knowledge of parenting and child development and her love of the school and the children through hundreds of “Parenting From the Heart” columns over the past 20 years]

• Our Parent Corral, our wonderful DEIB Committee, and all the hardworking room parents for helping us live out our values of compassion and inclusion all year

• Our new board of directors for all their expertise and wholehearted support

Wishing everyone in our community happy holidays and new year full of gratitude for the wonderful lives we share.